Angels have been recognized throughout time as harbingers of purity and righteousness, shining beacons of enlightenment and redemption. Los Angeles itself, the City of Angels, has been a living symbol of personal renewal, rebirth, and enlightenment.
In the divine hierarchy, Archangels are the penultimate manifestation and personification of power and good over evil, the purity of spirit over the weakness of flesh. In the same way, Los Angeles seeks to triumph over the trials and tribulations, physical, emotional, and spiritual, to reach the pinnacle of accomplishment.
Los Angeles has a social and competitive tradition in this vein, struggling as it has over political, theological, and existential conflict. Man verses Man. Man verses Nature. Man, flawed and challenged, verses Himself and his better nature.
The name Los Angeles is Spanish for “the Angels”. The original name was “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula.” On August 2, 1769, a Franciscan priest, Father Juan Crespi, accompanying the first European land expedition through California, came upon a beautiful river named Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula. According to the Franciscan calendar, August 2 was the day on which the Feast of the Perdono was celebrated. Early in St. Francis’ life, the Benedictines had given him a tiny chapel near Assisi. The chapel was ruined and in need of repair. On the wall behind the altar was a fresco of the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels. Contained within a Basilica, the chapel was named Saint Mary of the Angels at the Little Portion. The newly discovered “beautiful river” was named in honor of this celebration and this chapel. In 1781, a new settlement was established along that river which came to be known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion although its official name was simply El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles.